


Carpe Diem; Carpe Futura

by babykid528



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [4]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: First Time, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 11:47:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1509380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babykid528/pseuds/babykid528
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://colinmorgan.tumblr.com/">colinmorgan</a> prompted: An AU where Pinto are caught in a time loop</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carpe Diem; Carpe Futura

**Author's Note:**

  * For [curvasud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curvasud/gifts).



> The author knows not what she just wrote.

**Tuesday, April 22, 2014,** **10:30AM**

 _♫_ _It was the heat of the moment…Telling me what your heart meant…Heat of the moment shone in your eyes…_ _♫_

Chris wakes, heart racing, an involuntary whimper escaping as he hears the song playing on his radio. He quickly pulls a pillow over his face. 

It’s been a week of this. A solid week of this hell. A week of waking up to Asia. A week of fucking _Tuesdays_.

When Chris was younger, he thought _Groundhog Day_ was a funny movie. Now, he’s fairly certain it’s actually a horror film. Reliving the same Tuesday for seven days will change a person’s perspective on life.

With a loud huff, he throws the pillow across the room and throws the covers off his bed. He savagely turns off his alarm and stalks through his house to the front door, without even bothering to put on clothes.

He pulls the door open just before Zach rings the bell.

“Hey!” Zach yelps, startled. Which startles Noah, who Zach has with him, into a mini barking fit.

“Noah, shush,” Zach says, quieting the dog.

“Sorry I startled you. I saw you pull up,” Chris tells him.

It’s a lie, of course. It’s all a lie. He knew Zach would arrive with Noah at exactly 10:42AM because that’s the same time Zach and Noah have arrived for the last week.

“Come on in,” Chris says, welcoming them into his home with an air of mild annoyance.

“Oooookay,” Zach says hesitantly, “Did I do something wrong? I know I’m a little early.”

“No, it’s fine,” Chris huffs as he shuts the door behind them, “You’re fine. I’m just not having the best week.”

Zach gives him a funny look as he lets Noah off his leash.

“You said everything was fine when we spoke yesterday,” he says.

Chris sighs and reaches down to scratch at Noah’s ear before the dog takes off to explore Chris’ home.

“Monday was so long ago,” he mumbles under his breath.

“What?” Zach asks.

“Nothing,” Chris assures him. “It’s just, yesterday feels like it was so long ago.”

Zach hums, apparently accepting that answer, as they walk into the living room together.

“Did you have any particular plans for us today?” he asks as he takes a seat on the couch.

That is a loaded question and Zach doesn’t even know it. The first Tuesday, they went to lunch and shopping and dinner and then came home. They did the same on the second day. The third Tuesday they went to the bowling alley and had a bunch of junk food all day and called it a night early. The fourth day, they stayed home and watched movies, because Chris was pissed by that point. The fifth day they spent arguing in Chris’ bedroom because Chris refused to get out of bed and Zach was mad he was being so weird when Zach had such little time to spend with his supposed best friend, and Chris tried to explain to him that they’d spent too much time living the same day already, and freaked Zach out so badly that he left and slammed all the doors behind him. The sixth day, Chris had made his excuses, feigned being sick, and begged Zach not to stay.

Now, on the seventh Tuesday together, when presented with the question of what they should do for the day, Chris is ready to suggest they sit quietly and do nothing, since they’re just going to relive everything again tomorrow. But he doesn’t.

He’s frustrated, more frustrated than he was during their fight on day five. And there’s no use pretending he’s not.

“I only ask,” Zach says, trying to diffuse Chris’ obvious mood, “because I was wondering if you wanted to get dressed or something?”

Chris looks down suddenly to see he’s in nothing but his boxer briefs.

“Oh my God,” he groans before looking at Zach again, blushing. “I forgot I wasn’t wearing clothes.”

Zach looks amused, of course, but also mildly aroused.

And that’s it.

Chris is done with this bullshit.

He’s done with living the same failed Tuesday over and over and over again. He’s tried to figure out a way out of this, without success thus far. Now he’s going for the only option he has left to him and he’s not even going to second-guess himself.

When he last spoke to Katie – back before he went through a week of Tuesdays – she said something to him that he hadn’t really thought too hard about:

_“You know, Chris. If you don’t take a chance on him, you’re going to wake up one day and regret that you can’t go back and do it over, properly.”_

Chris clenches his jaw and his fists, takes a deep breath, releases it on a sigh, and silently tells off his sister for the weird Freaky Friday type curse her words obviously set off.

“You know what…” Chris says, determined now, “No.”

“No?” Zach asks on a laugh. “You don’t want to get dressed?”

“Nope,” Chris tells him, shaking his head, smiling a little crazily.

“What the hell’s going on, Chris?” Zach asks.

“Well,” he says carefully, “I’ve actually played through a number of scenarios for how we could spend this day together. And every scenario ends unsatisfactorily. But there’s one scenario I wouldn’t let myself consider before now, and I think it might be the only way to get to Wednesday.”

Zach looks vaguely concerned.

“In our other scenarios, did we die?” he asks. “Because I am all for the scenario where we get to Wednesday.”

“Good then,” Chris nods, moving closer.

“What –“ Zach begins.

“I’m a little in love with you,” Chris tells him, dropping to sit on the couch beside him.

Zach’s eyes widen and he actually sputters.

“Okay, I’m a lot in love with you, actually. I’ve been in love with you for years and I didn’t tell you, even though Katie, Karl, and your brother have been basically begging me to tell you for ages now,” Chris says.

Zach looks like he’s either having some kind of aneurysm or maybe he’s going into shock.

“I’m telling you now, on this seemingly random Tuesday morning, in my goddamn underwear, because I’m hoping if I tell you we might be able to get on with our lives now,” Chris continues. “Or, if it’s not the way forward, then you won’t remember any of it tomorrow anyway.”

Zach’s suddenly pressing the back of his hand to Chris’ forehead.

“Are you sick? Do you have a fever?” Zach asks, concerned.

Chris swats his hand away.

“What? No! No, I’m not sick! I’m not having fever hallucinations, Zach! I’m just at my wit’s end and maybe admitting this to you, finally, after all this time, might let me live the rest of my life uninhibited!”

Zach goes back to looking gobsmacked.

“This is. I’m just,” he sputters, “I wasn’t expecting I love you!”

Chris sighs, “No, I don’t imagine you were. I wasn’t expecting to have to say it anytime soon, actually. Or ever. I was mostly okay with pretending not to love you. So, yeah. Sorry to catch you off guard. I just can’t go on like this… Joe promised you’d be thrilled to hear this.”

Zach goes bright crimson in an instant.

“Joe told you that?” he asks, voice shrill.

Chris goes wide-eyed. “Shit! Didn’t mean to say that… well… fuck… um….”

“I’m going to kill Joe!” Zach shouts, mortified, and flails his arms.

Chris grabs Zach’s hands and squeezes them.

“No don’t!” Chris pleads, “Your brother is almost as scary as my sister, so we definitely shouldn’t let him know that I just told you that. We should really just forgive him his meddling and either agree to pretend this never happened and agree that we’re just best friends, or we should maybe kiss now, if we’re not pretending this never happened.”

“How could we?” Zach asks, helplessly, “After this ridiculous conversation, how could we ever just pretend it never happened?”

Chris shrugs, “I don’t know.”

Zach stares at his hands, still gripped tightly in Chris’.

He looks up at Chris’ face again.

“You love me?” Zach asks. He’s calmer, but he’s still completely overwhelmed.

Chris nods, dropping his gaze to their hands. He’s becoming overwhelmed with sappiness as the frustration at the Tuesday situation begins to wane in the wake of his confession.

“Yeah,” he says softly, “I do.”

Zach squeezes Chris’ hands back then.

“You’ve loved me for years,” he says.

Chris looks up at Zach again, sees the soft smile on his face, and mirrors it.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“Well,” Zach sighs, “I should’ve done this years ago, then.”

He leans in slowly, presses his lips chastely to Chris’. It’s just a gentle pressure that ends in a soft brush as their mouths part.

Chris’ heart is pounding in his ears and he chases after Zach’s lips when Zach leans away. He pulls Zach’s hands against his chest and hugs them tight as he licks Zach’s bottom lip.

Zach releases Chris’ hands and flattens his palms against his chest. He snakes his arms around Chris’ back so he can hold on tight to his shoulder blades as he opens his mouth and deepens the kiss. Chris grips Zach’s knee tightly and reaches his other hand up to rub the nape of Zach’s neck.

“We should’ve done this years ago,” Zach says, repeating his earlier statement on a quick exhale against Chris’ mouth. He sounds sure and happy.

“What matters is we’re doing it now,” Chris replies, just as breathless, just as happy. He scratches lightly at Zach’s scalp.

Zach just smiles wide and pulls him forward. Chris snorts out a laugh as he leans into Zach so he can kiss him again.

\---

Chris wakes from sleep sometime later to the sound of a dog sniffing close to his ear.

"Noah, quit it," Zach's muffled whisper, close to Chris' other ear, makes Chris open his eyes.

He's face to face with Noah then, the dog's front paws are on the edge of the bed, his hind paws on the floor, so he can lean up and check Chris out. Noah gives his face a quick kiss.

"Hey, buddy," Chris says, voice rough but giddy as he looks over the dog’s head to the clock radio with the time 8:45AM brightly shining.

Zach leans over him then and shoos Noah away from the bed.

"Sorry," Zach says, settling back down and sleepily pressing his face into Chris' neck. He kisses Chris' warm skin before he asks, "Did he wake you?"

"It's fine," Chris says, snuggling closer to Zach, smiling widely. He laughs a bit hysterically then.

Zach pulls back so he can look down at him.

"What's so amusing?"

"I'm just so happy it's Wednesday," he gasps out between laughs.

Zach gives him a strange look, but Chris pulls him into a positively filthy kiss before he can ask anymore questions. Maybe Chris will explain everything to him someday. After all, they’ve got days and years, a whole future together ahead of them.


End file.
